Sure, we’re all carrying around more computing power in our pockets than all of America had throughout the 1980s—but what does it really matter? Are we any happier? The answer was no, until very recently, when a Swedish guy made a smartphone app to remotely control his Miata’s pop-up headlights.

Some guy on the YouTubes looked at the creek flowing through his property and said, “I wanna get some use out of that water, and I’m gonna make me some power.” In what can only be described as pure genius, he cobbled up an alternator, a wheel bearing, a wire spool, a bicycle wheel and a few other things, and built his…

A Tesla Model X owner just tore into his car, finding what appears to be a provision for a new triple front-facing camera. Here’s video of that tear-down, showing the vacant coax port that Electrekthinks might enable some current Teslas to be retrofit for fully-autonomous Autopilot 2.0.

Autonomous driving cars have many components that are analogous to our own moist, biological sensory organs. A Tesla’s radar emitter and camera, for example, serve a similar purpose in driving as your big, beautiful eyes. You know how if you cover your eyes, you can’t drive very well? That’s essentially what…

Everyone is still pretty mesmerized by Pokémon Go, the mobile game that leverages the world’s love for imaginary beast enslavement. One alleged enterprising hacker seems to have gotten the game to play on the massive touchscreen of his Tesla Model S. I’m inclined to call bullshit on this one. Update: And I was right.

Adam Savage, of Mythbusters fame and now at Tested, needed a car seat for his dogs that could go right in the back of his brand new car—one that would protect the leather interior, but still be thick and sturdy enough not to move around when they get boisterous. He made this, and it works like a charm.

Yesterday, we reported on a significant security hole with Nissan Leafs (and electric eNV200 vans) that would allow some HVAC systems and a good amount of owner data to be accessed via the web. The hole was, pretty much, that there was no real security at all. Happily, it looks like Nissan is taking the issue…

So you just bought a used car. The previous owner may have said it was in great working condition, but how do you know it’s really safe to drive? If you don’t go to a pro mechanic, you’ll have to find out for yourself. Here’s how you can ensure your car isn’t a death-mobile with almost no tools.

George Hotz is such a computer geek that he refers to a modern car as “a computer.” He’s not exactly wrong, but he’s not exactly right, either. Still, he’s right enough that he was able to hack together a fairly viable autonomous car in the space of a couple months, with off-the shelf hardware. It’s also proven to be…

Just in case you haven’t spent two painful minutes talking to me, I should probably come out and admit that I’m a huge dork. As a huge dork, I have hugely dorky interests, like woefully obsolete display technologies and woefully primitive cars. It seems like the right thing to do would be to combine these interests.…

Really early Beetles still came with starting cranks, and I’ve always sort of wished that continued. I’ve had to push-start or jump dead-battery Beetles many, many times. I’m not alone, of course, and some have figured out much better ways.

Sometimes you encounter something so basic, so obvious, that it seems like it’s just part of the fundamental essence of being a human. Well, specifically, being a human that turns discarded home materials into little racecars. Like this extraordinarily well-done bathtub racer.

I’ve always felt that if I could change one thing about myself, I’d have a bigger bladder installed. My main reason would be because of driving — I hate having to stop to pee while driving. So, the idea of being able to drive and pee without using to diapers — popular among jealous astronauts — has long been a dream.

We've been promised lots of things in The Future. Some of are panning out (see: autonomous vehicles) and others are still pipe dreams (see: flying cars). But we're getting closer to Jetsons-style home automation, and one enterprising Mac nerd isn't waiting around for automakers and consumer electronics companies to…